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Post by marnvbc2 on May 6, 2024 21:11:46 GMT -5
First Meyer, now Damuni… the nepotism is real I mean, Whitney Bower has been on a pro roster all season. But sure, "nepotism." I guess it was the "nepotism" that runs rampant that forced Atlanta to use a second-round pick on her and keep her. Also, Morgan Bower basically never played her last two seasons. Eden Bower has been in and out of the lineup despite being a highly-touted prospect (extra amusing because Erin Livingston--a walk-on--played over her because she was better). And it's also not like Alex Bower wasn't a highly-touted recruit. We'll see what happens, but the marns of the world who think they know more than a national coach of the year is hilarious. Edit: as for Damuni, I'm sad to see her go, but I'm never surprised when a setter transfers if it looks like they won't start. They're like quarterbacks. bbg - Heather as National Coach of the Year was complements of her brother, who recruited the entire starting rotation for her! Heather Olmstead will never win another National Coach of the Year. Not as long as she has a Bower on the roster because she can't see straight with them around.
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Post by marnvbc2 on May 6, 2024 21:17:21 GMT -5
Same here- I really hope the team does well this Fall, but yes, Damuni is a unique all around player. I only saw the last Utah scrimmage, but heard from others that she played a 5-1 at UVU and won while Bower lost both 5-1s at the last scrimmage and UVU. She is a freshmen and will get better and better. But, like Meyer, it is sad to see such great talent wasted at BYU. Sometimes I felt that Damuni could at least have helped in the backrow at times- somewhere besides standing on the sidelines. Heather seems to have decided on the Bower setters sisters in advance and will just go with that development no matter who is already there. I wonder about 2025 when Suli and another setter come in? Hmmmmm how will that roll? Unfortunately, the answer to your question is that the ball will "roll" right into Bower's hands. The only thing that will course correct Heather will be losing. I still hold out a sliver of hope that Heather hates losing more than playing a Bower legacy kid. So, if they lose a few winnable matches with Alex Bower in the captains chair, maybe a change will occur? But, it will only be after almost all other possible substitutions will be made.
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Post by marnvbc2 on May 6, 2024 21:23:09 GMT -5
I just want to remind everyone that the minute I heard Heather being interviewed at the conclusion of the first ever W Bower match at BYU, Heather asked the BYUtv announcing team what they said about Bower during the broadcast ..... on live TV. You could tell that the announcing duo couldn't believe what the were hearing. Heather then went on to gush about Whitney and said that Bower would be playing in the Olympics if she wanted to. "Sky is the limit" for Whitney Bower. I fell off my chair and I knew that Heather was either a terrible talent evaluator, had been paid off by the Bower family, or was trying to play a joke on the BYUtv crew. In hindsight, she was dead serious! And Dead Wrong!
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vvv
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Post by vvv on May 6, 2024 21:43:47 GMT -5
I am sure damuni is kicking herself right now. She must have NOT been reading the writing on the wall and just jumped in head first. I am sure she had a ton of offers, but assumed Best Man Up.... here at BYU. Okay... well, we shall see.
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May 6, 2024 22:06:01 GMT -5
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Post by azvb on May 6, 2024 22:06:01 GMT -5
Is there a back up setter?
I didn’t see any spring matches, but it sounds like Bower was given more playing time. Would have been nice to have split the playing time evenly during the spring.
I feel bad Damuni also burned a year serving occasionally 😐. Hope she finds a good fit.
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Post by pelagius on May 6, 2024 22:08:14 GMT -5
Is there a back up setter? I didn’t see any spring matches, but it sounds like Bower was given more playing time. Would have been nice to have split the playing time evenly during the spring. I feel bad Damuni also burned a year serving occasionally 😐. Hope she finds a good fit.
BYU still has Thunstrom as a backup. Pretty big dropoff in talent from Damuni and A. Bower to Thunstrom. Pretty good serve though.
Thunstrom did get some time in the spring, but only in a 6-2 in the spring matches that I watched.
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vvv
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Post by vvv on May 6, 2024 22:40:08 GMT -5
Yes... I forgot about that part. Damuni blew a year of eligibility as a sporadic serve specialist. Yah, I can see how she is done with that treatment. She won't waste another year; not with her talent. I bet Heather gets another setter from the portal as well. She seems to always carry 3 on the roster when most teams carry 2, i think.
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Post by marnvbc2 on May 8, 2024 15:02:13 GMT -5
Is there a back up setter? I didn’t see any spring matches, but it sounds like Bower was given more playing time. Would have been nice to have split the playing time evenly during the spring. I feel bad Damuni also burned a year serving occasionally 😐. Hope she finds a good fit. Don't think that the burning of Damuni's year of eligibility wasn't intentional (and I called it back when it happened last year and bbg was all mad at me for suggesting Heather would do something like that). Also, don't think that there was agreement inside the BYU staff about this decision! Any top 10 coach in the country would have split time this spring between Damuni and Bower. Let them fight it out. Heather, Nope!! Maybe bbg can explain, just off the evidence of spring ball (I think she watched even though she claimed to be asleep), why Bower would start in the fall OR why Damuni would be told to move on by Heather? Spring is a 4 match sample size ... head to head and it wasn't Bower who looked the best. There are 3 setters on the roster and clearly 2 of them got almost all the playing time (Bower and Damuni) so there is no logical argument that the 3rd string setter is the second best or best setter on the team. Why would you bring in a girl who is (in Heather's eyes) the second best setter on the team and tell her to leave when she is younger than the 3rd string setter? I am looking at this from Heather's/BYU's point of view. Why would you do that? Make zero sense if you are competitive and smart. But, Damuni is the best setter on the team and maybe the best DS on the team also, but lets just say Heather is correct and Damuni is behind Bower. Why would you take a risk on injury to Bower and be stuck like Heather was last time she pulled a dumb maneuver like this with W Bower and Z Meyer and cost BYU the entire spring season without a match?
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Post by marnvbc2 on May 8, 2024 15:11:05 GMT -5
Yes... I forgot about that part. Damuni blew a year of eligibility as a sporadic serve specialist. Yah, I can see how she is done with that treatment. She won't waste another year; not with her talent. I bet Heather gets another setter from the portal as well. She seems to always carry 3 on the roster when most teams carry 2, i think. We will see about that. I think the word has traveled quite far about Damuni leaving. Meyer has commented a little bit about her experience with Heather. I have zero inside info on Damuni but I bet she makes a few comments also. If you were a decent setter in the portal .... or even from Club .... why would you go to BYU and sit behind Bower for 3-4 years? I think Heather was only thinking about bbg(momma Bower) when she made A Bower the starter, but she failed to recognize the message it would send to the rest of the country. Hey, is there another Bower setter coming up in that family? Maybe that is something that could be an answer to the mystery of what is going on here? Maybe a 20 year old college freshman on her way?
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Post by pelagius on May 8, 2024 15:17:36 GMT -5
So I did this earlier for just Alex Bower and Damuni, but I am adding in the setting breakdown for Thunstrom as well for the two scrimmages I saw (first Utah match and the UVU match):
A. Bower: 5-1 three sets, 6-2 two sets, 5-2 one set. Damuni: 5-1 one set, 6-2 one set, 5-2 one set Thunstrom: 6-2 three sets (two with Bower and one with Damuni)
Thunstrom played a bit less than Damuni. They both played three sets in those two scrimmages, but Damuni got the one 5-1 set. So that's more rotations. If you count 5-1 sets as one set in terms of rotations and a 6-2 or 5-2 as 0.5 of set as rotations then in terms of time played:
Alex Bower: 4 Damuni: 2
Thunstrom: 1.5
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Post by marnvbc2 on May 8, 2024 15:25:04 GMT -5
Well, all the Bower drama probably will mean 2 or 3 wins less for BYU in the fall, but the biggest coaching disaster isn't in the setting dept. Heather refuses to put Mia over at Opp and Prior at MB. Should have been done last fall. Heather should have done that and made sure she recruited her own roster with Erin Livingston during the winter and spring. She didn't do any of those things. She won't make those adjustments this fall unless there are injuries that force the issue. BYU isn't their best team with Prior at Opp and Lee at MB. But, Heather isn't one bit flexible or willing to admit a mistake has been made. The biggest issue is that she doesn't want to allow fans, coaches, players or others to see that she did make a mistake. She would rather crater a season than admit a mistake.
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Post by pelagius on May 8, 2024 15:33:35 GMT -5
I am not as negative as marnvbc2 in terms of the probable implications, but, yeah, I would have liked to see a set or two with Prior at middle and Lee at RS. That would have been interesting.
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Post by marnvbc2 on May 8, 2024 15:38:42 GMT -5
So I did this earlier for just Alex Bower and Damuni, but I am adding in the setting breakdown for Thunstrom as well for the two scrimmages I saw (first Utah match and the UVU match):
A. Bower: 5-1 three sets, 6-2 two sets, 5-2 one set. Damuni: 5-1 one set, 6-2 one set, 5-2 one set Thunstrom: 6-2 three sets (two with Bower and one with Damuni)
Thunstrom played a bit less than Damuni. They both played three sets in those two scrimmages, but Damuni got the one 5-1 set. So that's more rotations. If you count 5-1 sets as one set in terms of rotations and a 6-2 or 5-2 as 0.5 of set as rotations then in terms of time played:
Alex Bower: 4 Damuni: 2
Thunstrom: 1.5
Good info. Thanks!
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May 8, 2024 15:40:38 GMT -5
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Post by rrvbfan on May 8, 2024 15:40:38 GMT -5
No one told Damuni to move on. It does Heather well to have a back up of her caliber. Damuni just knew that she needed to move on if she wanted to play. She saw the writing on the wall. Many schools do this, especially if they don’t think the athlete will leave. Funny thing about it is is that I do not think that BYU was this Bowers number 1 choice.
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Post by marnvbc2 on May 8, 2024 15:47:39 GMT -5
I am not as negative as marnvbc2 in terms of the probable implications, but, yeah, I would have liked to see a set or two with Prior at middle and Lee at RS. That would have been interesting. And I appreciate you not being as negative as i am on the BYU situation, pelaguis. Hopefully you will be right. I just think that Heather played a non conf schedule last year that allowed her to move a lot of pieces around the court. She actually experimented quite a bit for her. But, the ONLY experiment that was logical .... that wasn't even attempted ... was the Lee/Prior swap. Really? She couldn't allow Prior into the Middle at all. There were sets were Prior sat the bench last spring, non conf and this spring where Heather was trying out other potential Opps when Prior could have easily had a set or 2 or 3 at MB. She has played the MB position before and she was a top 6 MB in the country. It just boggles my mind. Mia is uber talented physically and it would take about 1 match for her to figure out the Rt side. I just don't get why we can't be allowed to see them in those spots .... ever??? This is a bigger cause for concern that her unnatural love/loyalty for the Bower family.
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